86 INSCRIPTION TO THE 



By his benevolent and unabating attention to the welfare 

 of his ship's company, he discovered and introduced a system 

 for the preservation of the health of seamen in long voyages, 

 which has proved wonderfully efficacious : for in his second 

 voyage round the world, which continued upwards of three 

 years, he lost only one man by distemper, of one hundred and 

 eighteen, of which his company consisted. 



The death of this eminent and valuable man was a loss to 

 mankind in general ; and particularly to be deplored by every 

 nation that respects useful accomplishments, that honours 

 science, and loves the benevolent and amiable affections of 

 the heart. It is still more to be deplored by this country, 

 which may justly boast of having produced a man hitherto 

 unequalled for nautical talents; and that sorrow is farther 

 aggravated by the reflection, that his country was deprived of 

 this ornament by the enmity of a people, from whom, indeed, 

 it might have been dreaded, but from whom it was not 

 deserved. For, actuated always by the most attentive care 

 and tender compassion for the savages in general, this excel- 

 lent man was ever assiduously endeavouring, by kind treat- 

 ment, to dissipate their fears and court their friendship; over- 

 looking their thefts and treacheries, and frequently inter- 

 posing, at the hazard of his life, to protect them from the 

 sudden resentment of his own injured people. 



The object of his last mission was to discover and ascertain 

 the boundaries of Asia and America, and to penetrate into 

 the Northern Ocean by the North East Cape of Asia. 



Traveller ! contemplate, admire, revere, and emulate this 

 great master in his profession; whose skill and labours have 

 enlarged natural philosophy ; have extended nautical science ; 

 and have disclosed the long-concealed and admirable arrange- 

 ments of the Almighty in the formation of this globe, and, at 

 the same time, the arrogance of mortals, in presuming to ac- 

 count, by their speculations, for the laws by which he was 

 pleased to create it. It is now discovered, beyond all doubt, 

 that the same Great Being who created the universe by his 

 Jiat) by the same ordained our earth to keep a just poise, 

 without a corresponding Southern continent and it does so ! 

 " He stretches out the North over the empty place, and 

 " hangeth the earth upon nothing.'' Job, xxvi. 7. 



If the arduous but exact researches of this extraordinary 

 man have not discovered a new world, they have discovered 

 seas unnavigated and unknown before. They have madeus 

 acquainted with islands, people, and productions, of which we 



